CHEM101: General Chemistry I

2.4: The Periodic Table of the Elements

• Khan Academy: "More on Orbitals and Electron Configuration", "Electron Configuration", "Electron Configuration 2", and "Valence Electrons" Page

  Watch these four videos to reinforce the concepts covered in the reading assignment.
  

• 2.4.1: Electron Configurations

  • Stephen Lower's "General Chemistry Virtual Textbook: Atomic Electron Configurations"

    Read this webpage. This material covers electron configurations and the arrangement of the periodic table. An electronic configuration is a listing of the occupancy of an atom's electrons amongst its orbitals. The periodic table was purposefully designed to reflect the chemical nature of each element. Metals, for example, are on the left-hand side, while noble gases are on the right. Halogens are always to the immediate left of the noble gases. By the end of this section, you should be able to identify these and other groups on a periodic table. Remember that a group is a vertical column, while a period is a horizontal row.
    

• 2.4.2: Trends in the Periodic Table

  • Stephen Lower's "General Chemistry Virtual Textbook: Periodic Properties of the Elements"

    Read this webpage. This material reinforces what you just learned about the arrangement of the periodic table. It also discusses the general trends exhibited, including atomic size, ionization energy, electron affinity, and electronegativity.
    

  • Khan Academy: "Groups of the Periodic Table", "Periodic Table Trends: Ionization", and "Other Periodic Table Trends" Page

    Groups on the periodic table are important because elements within a particular group, in general, have similar chemical properties and reactivity. Ionization refers to the process of removing an electron from an atom. Ionization energy pertains to the energy supplied to facilitate this process. Watch these three lectures to reinforce the concepts covered in the reading assignment.